Eduardo Berti was born in Argentina in 1964 and has lived in France for nearly thirty years. A writer in Spanish, and also more recently in French, he is the author of several novels (including La mujer de Wakefield, Todos los Funes, Un padre extranjero, and Un hijo extranjero), collections of short stories and flash fiction (Lo inolvidable, La vida imposible), and unclassifiable texts, such as Inventario de inventos (inventados) and Mauvaises méthodes pour bonnes lectures. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. His English titles are Agua (Pushkin Press), The Imagined Land (Deep Vellum), and An Ideal Presence (Fern Books). In parallel, he has published several books on popular music (tango, Argentinian rock) and Spanish translations of authors such as Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Georges Perec. He became a member of the Oulipo in June 2014. His last book published in France, Faster, recently received the Prix Roger Caillois.
Andrew Cockburn is the Washington Editor of Harper’s Magazine. He is a regular opinion contributor to the Los Angeles Times and has written for, among others, the New York Times, National Geographic, and the London Review of Books. He is the author of Spoils of War, Kill Chain, and Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy. His new book, Washington Is Burning, will be published in March.
Paul Fournel, born in 1947 in Saint-Etienne, is a writer. He spent many years as a publisher (at Ramsay and Seghers, among others). He was president of the Société des gens de Lettres and director of the Alliance Française in San Francisco. He has been a cultural attaché in Cairo and London. Now he is a writer full-time and a cyclist the rest of the time. During his third full time, he participates in the activities of the Oulipo.
His books include novels: Attends voir, Jeune-Vieille, Jason Murphy, La Liseuse (published in English by Pushkin as Dear Reader), Un homme regarde une femme, Foraine, Chamboula, Faire Guignol, Le Livre de Gabert; stories: Les petites filles respirent le même air que nous (published in English by George Braziller as Little Girls Breathe the Same Air As We Do), Les grosses rêveuses, Les athlètes dans leur tête, Les manières douces de Profane Lulu, Courbatures, Peloton maison, Imagine Claudine; theatre: Foyer Jardin; essays: Guignol, Poils de Cairote, Besoin de vélo (published in English by University of Nebraska Press as Need for the Bike), Anquetil tout seul (published in English by Profile Books as Anquetil, Alone), Les cartes du Tour; and poetry: Toi qui connais du monde, Terines d’amérique, Le bel appétit.
John Ganz is the author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. He writes the widely acclaimed Unpopular Front newsletter for Substack. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Artforum, the New Statesman, and other publications.
Richard Hell was born and grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, but dropped out of high school and moved alone to New York at the age of seventeen. He first came to public attention in the mid-1970s as an originator of punk. In 1984 he retired from music and returned to his original ambition of writing books. He is the author of several works of fiction, poetry, essays, notebooks, and autobiography, including The Voidoid, Across the Years, Artifact, Go Now, Hot and Cold, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, Massive Pissed Love, and What Just Happened, as well as co-author of book-length collaborations, including the collection of poems Wanna Go Out? (published under the heteronym Theresa Stern) with the musician Tom Verlaine and the image-texts of Psychopts with the artist Christopher Wool. First published in 2005, Hell’s novel Godlike was reissued this year as an NYRB Classic.
Jim Holt writes about math, science, and philosophy for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Review of Books. His Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story was an international bestseller. He is also the author of When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought and Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes.
Sophie Kemp is the author of the novel Paradise Logic, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. Her fiction and essays have appeared in the Paris Review, Granta, Vogue, and Pitchfork. She teaches writing at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.
Daniel Levin Becker is a critic, editor, and translator from Chicago. He is the author of What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Literature (City Lights, 2022) and Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature (Harvard University Press, 2012), and the co-founder of the very small press Fern Books. His recent translations from French include Like a Sky Inside by Jakuta Alikavazovic (Fern Books, 2024), Museum Visits by Éric Chevillard (Yale University Press, 2024), and The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier (Fitzcarraldo Editions/Transit Books, 2023). He has been a member of the Oulipo since 2009.
Max Read is a journalist, screenwriter, editor, and the owner-operator of Read Max, a weekly newsletter guide to the future. His work concerns the weird ways the internet makes us think, feel, and organize ourselves. His writing has appeared in New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times, where he writes the “Work Friend” column. He’s also the former editor of Gawker and Select All. His Bookforum essay “Going Postal” was selected for The Best American Essays 2021, and his New York feature “The Year in Memes” was nominated for a National Magazine Award. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and child.
Lucy Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, Kill All Your Darlings, Folk Photography, The Other Paris, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, Nineteen Reservoirs, and, most recently, I Heard Her Call My Name, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her other honors include a Whiting Writers Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Grammy (for album notes), an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, and Guggenheim and Cullman Center fellowships. She retired in 2023 after 24 years teaching writing and the history of photography at Bard College.
Stephanie Wambugu lives in New York City. She was born in Mombasa, Kenya and grew up in New England. Her work appears in The Nation, Granta, frieze, Bookforum and The Drift. Her debut novel Lonely Crowds was published by Little, Brown in 2025.
Reggie D. White is the artistic director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC.
White made his Broadway debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning The Inheritance and has earned praise for roles on stage and screen including, most recently, Goddess at The Public Theater. His directing credits include Atlantic Theater Company, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and The Williams Project.
As a playwright, his work has been developed at Bay Street Theater and Berkeley Rep, and his play Fremont Ave. will next be seen at California’s South Coast Repertory after its world premiere at Arena Stage this fall opened to critical acclaim and won the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. He previously served as Artistic Director of the Atlantic Acting School (2018–2022), Associate Artistic Director of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (2022-2024), is a resident artist at Vineyard Theatre, and a recipient of numerous honors, including the Colman Domingo Award, TCG Fox Fellowship, TBA Titan Award, and the RHE Artistic Fellowship.